The Future of Family History?

Family history research is going to be great fun for our descendants. Family history research sites will likely have records like ‘Emails 2006-2008.’ So at some future date it is quite possible your Great Great Great Great Great Grandchildren may be adding what we eat for breakfast to our profile pages. The profile picture is likely to be the worst photo anybody has ever taken of us in our entire life Perhaps by then they will have worked out a way to have a ‘Window back in Time’ and actually watch us eating breakfast. Google Earth has opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities.No doubt they will be able to survey their ancestors house through time.

Each and every day we are leaving a digital footprint.I feel they will probably be scouring our medical records one day. Family history websites are usually filled with photographs of deceased ancestors. I often contemplate the fact that when they posed for that photograph a hundred years or more ago, they had no idea it would one day have a worldwide audience. I am also well aware that most of we family historians are indeed amateurs. It is quite possible that a photo will be misidentified and we will actually feature as the profile picture of somebody’s Great Aunt Gladys.(even if Gladys features nowhere in our names). Still photo identification software is gradually getting better.

Doesn’t it always seem that ancestors are quirky? No matter what we do in our lives it will no doubt be the quirky stuff which gets highlighted. Isn’t it comforting to know that our most embarrassing moments are now frequently captured for posterity on the web?

Family history does tend to teach you that there really are few secrets eventually. It is amazing what shows up in records even hundreds of years ago. I absolutely love researching old newspapers. I have even found articles which list the entire possessions of several ancestors down to their sack of potatoes or their feather beds. Who knows what nasty surprises may be in store in the future for our poor descendants?